Amy Pollien » garden

Pesto season

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 02:04:10 +0000

Pesto is one of the barometers of a Maine summer. Basil requires long days and hot afternoons to truly grow fat, glossy leaves that give off a distinctive, almost skunky aroma and some years we just don’t get that. 2010 is shaping up to be the best garden year in recent memory, and the pesto so far is A+.

I picked almost a kitchen-sized garbage bag of basil, mostly because I wanted to be able to start the recipe off with “a garbage bag of basil”. I prefer to harvest in mid-afternoon (the plants are free of dew and at their most fragrant), and I simply cut them back by two or three nodes. I use the stems and all, but I do remove blossoms and buds. They seem to make the final product slightly bitter.

Stuff the bowl of a food processor with leaves and stems. Drizzle with olive oil. Add 1/2 tsp sea salt, 1 clove garlic and 2 Tbs pine nuts (toasted in a frying pan first) per batch. If you will be adding all the batches together you can keep track and add all the seasonings at once at the end, but I find doing it by increments is easier. Process until smooth, adding more olive oil if necessary.

I have been amazed at the number of people who comment about the photos on this blog – generally about the objects in the background. Turns out food photographers are all about isolating the product – setting the stage with your recipe as the star, and not so much with the bottle of Chinese black vinegar that has nothing to do with the current recipe. As long as you read this blog, you’re going to see that vinegar on the back of the counter. Also the red wine, cassis, port and probably a roll of paper towels. I don’t set these photos up, sadly, I just live here.

Cook your favorite pasta, drain and pour into a large serving bowl. Mix in about a cup of pesto per 6 servings, and some grated parm or asiago cheese. If my mother isn’t coming over we like to add hot pepper flakes. Freeze the remaining pesto in freezer jelly jars to remember summer come some winter dinner.

Garden Tour

admin — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 23:44:23 +0000

Today was a perfect day for a garden club tour; a bit of rain and clouds to discourage the casual observers but not enough wind to damage the white begonias, cool enough to walk energetically in a heavy skirt and sensible shoes, misty enough so that I didn’t regret forgetting my hat. This particular garden had not previously been open to the public. The cutting and kitchen gardens are visible through the wrought iron fence from the street, but it was wonderful to get up close and personal with the sunken Italianate formal garden, the mossy pergola that faces the cove, and some really lurid roses that were nevertheless enjoyable under the low, gray clouds. Oh, and the shingle style dog house with slate roof, dutch doors and window boxes was just the right touch of surreal.

My pen dropped out of my pocket somewhere along the 1/2 mile entrance road, and my batteries ran out before the kitchen garden, but here are what notes and images I managed to take away:

Artichokes – beautiful plants and evidently productive here. The head gardener went on at length about daylight and temperatures requirements for full maturity, but honestly I wouldn’t care if I didn’t get a whole lot of fruit – the plants were striking in themselves. Of course, he doesn’t have that luxury.

Cold frames extraordinaire: I went over to look at some cold frames – 15′ x 2′ high on the short end, rising to 4′ and faced with glass panels. When I looked in to the frames, I realized that they had been excavated to a depth of 10′. There were ladders built into the walls at either end for access. With that much berming they must be very cozy even in early spring, and if I thought I could dig a hole 12′ deep on my lot I’d try it out.

Smoke bush in bloom with Madonna lilies rising through the mist of blossoms – quite a striking effect.

Datura was everywhere, and lent an exotic air to the otherwise common assortment of border flowers: ligularia, phlox, mulliens, begonias and thalictrum.

Big Rock redux

admin — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 02:52:04 +0000

Last month our neighbors gifted us with a Significant Rock. It came on a Big Boom Truck – possibly the biggest vehicle to ever climb up our gravel road and I’ll stop with the capital letters now. The rock has a rather formal placement exactly perpendicular to the front of the house and lined up with one of the window bays. People have actually stopped their cars in the road and commented on it. Then they go on to mention the garden, and their garden back home, and then inquire after lobster, and really, it takes an awesome rock to stop tourists in their pursuit of local seafood. This weekend our neighbors called; “Did our rock want a life partner?”. Of course we said “Yes!”.

K’s boom truck showed up on Sunday afternoon in the pouring rain. I was on my third pair of shoes and already soaking wet, so a little more water wasn’t a problem.

Now reach into the truck. . .

And pull out a rock. . .

And confab on the placement. Because it’s not going anywhere after that webbing comes off.

A beautiful rock, nestled in blueberries. Note the worked edge – this might have been part of a foundation for a Bar Harbor “cottage” lost in the Great Fire. Now it resides with us, forever or until boom truck do us part.

Buoys, or not.

admin — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 03:01:00 +0000

Today I went down to Southwest Harbor for a concert. The Southwest Harborites were also celebrating the annual Pink Flamingo festival (the lawn ornaments are considered native fauna) and the Coast Guard base was having an open house so it was a high time on the village main street. I took the back road down to Clark Point and stopped at this stand to buy a jar of pear jam.

The sign is quite well designed, with the whole positive/negative space thing going on, and “Antiques” is spelled correctly. What happened to “bouys”? Curse those pesky diphthongs!

I bought a jar of pear jam. I’ve tried to make it myself, and could possibly make gallons of the stuff from the Seckel pear tree’s bounty, but my trial batches were gritty and insipid. This jar from Maine’s Own Treats has a nice clear color. The contents list includes: Pears, Sugar, Applesauce, Apple Juice and Pectin. Applesauce sounds like it might be the secret ingredient. We’re going to try the jam out tomorrow on Sunday waffles and then I’ll decide if this combination is worth another experiment.

I like the “We’re Open” sign, too. There wasn’t a soul around – what changes when they’re closed?

Sambucus

admin — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 02:47:14 +0000

2010 is shaping up to be a legendary garden year. Two years ago I dug a large Sambucus canadensis out of the dooryard and transplanted it to the lower garden. I laid plastic sheeting down over the bottom of the hole to keep it from re-generating, and here it is today. Perhaps I should have used steel plate. The Wikiepedia article lists the height as 3 meters or more, and that’s a 6′ step ladder at the right. This is going to be a great year for the elderberry harvest.

Sambucus (elder or elderberry) is a genus of between 5 and 30 species of shrubs or small trees in the moschatel family, Adoxaceae. It was formerly placed in the honeysuckle family, Caprifoliaceae, but was reclassified due to genetic evidence. Two of its species are herbaceous.

The genus is native in temperate-to-subtropical regions of both the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere. It is more widespread in the Northern Hemisphere; its Southern Hemisphere occurrence is restricted to parts of Australasia and South America.

The leaves are pinnate with 5–9 leaflets (rarely 3 or 11). Each leaf is 5–30 cm (2.0–12 in) long, and the leaflets have serrated margins. They bear large clusters of small white or cream-coloured flowers in late spring; these are followed by clusters of small black, blue-black, or red berries (rarely yellow or white).

The Green Season

admin — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 02:33:22 +0000

This has been the perfect year to grow lettuces. It was an early spring that warmed the soil and the hot afternoons have been broken up by cool rain at night – just like Camelot, as my mother used to say. I grow salad ingredients close to the house. They are convenient to pick at the last minute before dinner and the location makes it less tempting to the deer. So far.

I plant the lettuces very thickly to discourage weeds and keep the roots shaded. The picture above features Red Salad Bowl (very aptly named, in the bowl), Fedco’s mesclun mix in the front of the raised bed and Bull’s Blood beet greens in the back. My dooryard can be hot on a sunny afternoon, so the bed below is shaded by a young “Good Barn” sambucus.

Greens also make a good cover for larger and slower-maturing plants like these King Siegfried leeks. We have harvested quite a few heads of “Flashy Green” lettuce from this bed and I plan to replant this weekend with seedlings from the hoop house. I try to start a new batch every week to keep the rotation going.

While I often stop and consider whether growing my own produce is cost efficient, lettuce is always a no-brainer. One eighty cent “A” sized package from Fedco produces a season of nutrition with very little effort on the part of the gardener. Five packets of different varieties extend the season to the absolute limit with types that will grow (under mulch) until Thanksgiving and flavors to please everyone in the family. Go green!

Pruning, simplified

admin — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 02:49:25 +0000

With apologies to Lewis Hill, and his wonderful book.

I have 21 fruit trees scattered over two acres. Young or old, no matter what the type or variety, they all need to be pruned to fully realize their potential. Abandoned apple orchards line the highways in some parts of Maine, where cider was an economic force till the great Baldwin freeze of 1890. These trees have grown into gnarled and lichen covered thickets that bear no fruit and die from the inside out – so congested with their own growth that light never reaches the inner branches. Proper pruning allows light to reach every leaf, conserves the energy and flow of sap to productive branches, increases air circulation to discourage mildew and fungus development and keeps the fruit within reach of the gardener.

This weekend I took on the Seckel pear tree in the dooryard. Mature specimens of this variety can reach 50′ – although probably not in Maine. The tree is growing under my power lines so I am very conscientious about pruning this particular specimen.

You’ll need a good pair of pruning shears and a whet stone, a fine toothed tree saw, a pair of loppers and a “reach pruner”. I really, truly try to avoid getting on a ladder, but I do own an aluminum 8′ step ladder for trees that have lost control. Remember not to cut the branch down to the very end – leave the “collar” behind.

Here are the rules:

1. Remove dead or damaged branches

2. Remove branches that cross another branch or the trunk

3. Remove branches that grow straight up. You want a level or even downward slope

4. Shorten the remaining branches to the length required, but cut just above a leaf that is facing the way you want the branch to grow.

5. Stand back and look at the tree. Does it need to be shaped in any particular way? Cutting back hard encourages growth (although that doesn’t seem intuitive). Prune harder in the direction you want the tree to grow.

6. Pick up all the prunings. Dispose of them far from your trees, or bag or burn them. Leaving dead bits lying around encourages pests and fungus.

7. One additional rule that is all mine: if a part of the tree is too complicated to figure out this year, it will only be more complicated a year from now. See if you can cut that part out.

Get a good book on pruning fruit trees for your area. This is a field that folks before us have put in a great deal of time and effort to figure out – take advantage! And remember to sharpen your tools.

These photos are not very clear in a “branch by branch” fashion, but they do show the difference in size – before and after.

New rock

admin — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 02:27:32 +0000

Our neighbors across the road are moving. They’ve been wonderful neighbors and we’ll miss them, but as it happens their new home is only 10 minutes away. I don’t get out much, but I think I can still manage to visit. And they’ve promised to come back to Trick or Treat.

Like many households, they are distributing some of their belongings before they move. Unlike lots of folks, they have rocks. Big rocks, all over the lower driveway and they are taking some with them to the new place, and they gave one to us. It is a thing of beauty – 6′ x 2′ by 2′, grey with a few lichen spots and partly cut. S. told me the Japanese term for part smooth/part natural surface, and I’ve forgotten it already. Fortunately, you don’t need to know the word to appreciate the effect.

The New Rock sits partially across the straight-line access to the house, in line with the south window bay. The driveway used to come right up to the house – or rather, the front yard was an empty stretch of fill from nearby Lamoine that one could drive over. Somehow that open avenue has remained even as the space was populated with peach and pear trees, vegetable beds and a hoop house. This is a “before” photo of the front of the house.

This is the big truck that picked up the stone and dropped it (carefully) here. That’s a big truck.

Here’s the after photo with the stone in place. Rock solid, as they say.

Osmundastrum cinnamomeum

admin — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 01:57:19 +0000

Almost 2″ of rain has fallen here over the last 7 days and the Cinnamon Ferns are almost as tall as I am. I know you can buy these ferns potted, but I have no idea what sort of culture they would need to be transplanted. The one in the picture is growing on the shoulder of our gravel driveway and there are hundreds of them in the swamp beyond. I never thought I’d consider myself lucky to live next to a swamp, but it has proved to be a beautiful and complex habitat in all seasons.

Playing defense

admin — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:41:45 +0000

We are past apple blossom time here on the island; past plum, cherry, pear and peach blossoms too, and the trees have all set fruit. With the warmer nights and continued good rainfall comes new growth and rapid development, and the first signs of insect damage.

There are many good sites on the web for information on fruit tree pests. Every variety, no matter how modern and resistant, has its own weakness manifested in an insect, blight, rust, virus, spoor or mildew. Full time orchardists have a repertoire of traps and sprays in defense of (nearly) perfect product and I admire that. I should know more about traps, for instance, and plan to do the research for 2011 – I like passive defense. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time or opportunity to be a specialist. I have to be at work five days a week, far from my trees, and often miss the first signs of mildew, or leaf curl, only to come home one day and the top third of the Clapp pear’s foliage is deformed by mites. It can be discouraging.

Then I discovered Surround CP (cue the music for the dishwashing detergent commercial). I use it on all the fruit trees plus roses and vegetable crops. Although it is promoted as an insecticide I find it also inhibits the spread of rust and mildew. From the Fedco website:

Forms a particle film which coats the surface of leaves and fruits, creating a barrier which acts as a broad-spectrum crop protectant, reducing damage from various insects, mites and disease-carrying pests. Recommended for controlling European apple sawfly, plum curculio, Japanese beetles, leafhoppers, CPB, thrips and other maleficial insects on fruit crops and field crops, effective against cucumber beetles on cucurbits. 95% kaolin clay, Surround’s layer of white particles creates an unfamiliar environment for the attacking insects, prevents them from recognizing their target, and, if they land, the particles rub off on them causing irritation and excessive grooming. The white surface also reflects sunlight, preventing sunburn and heat damage.

Notice that this product is 95% clay (most of the other material is food grade wax) and about $40.00 for 25 pounds. I have 20 trees and often grow food crops around and beneath the foliage so an inert material that is inexpensive (compared to most pesticides) is a good thing. I begin spraying just after petal fall and build up a good coating with two or three applications over a two week period and then one or two more over the course of the season depending on rainfall amounts. Surround does not wash off readily but it will strip off faster over a rainy summer. It has a helpful secondary effect of turning the foliage ghostly white after a fresh application making it easy to see where you’ve been and areas you’ve missed!

Which begs the question – is it visible on everything else? Yes, but it comes off the plastic chair and marble paving stones much faster than it does from foliage!